Centre reconstitutes National Integration Council

New Delhi, Apr 12 (ANI): The Union Government on Monday reconstituted the National Integration Council (NIC).

The new council under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has 147 members.

The council includes Union Ministers, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Chief Ministers of all States and Union Territories with Legislatures, leaders of national political parties and regional political parties, Chairperson of National Commissions, eminent media persons, public figures, representatives of business and women's representatives.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Defence Minister A.K. Antony,Home Minister P. Chidambaram,Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee,Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily,Human Resource Minister Kapil Sibal, Information and Broadcasting Minster Ambika Soni,Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran, New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Prakash Karat, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati are among the prominent names of the council.

Leaders of different regional parties like-- Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal, Sukbir Singh Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal, N. Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desam Party, E. Ahamed of Indian Union Muslim League, Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, Lalu Prasad Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal, Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal (U) were also included in the council.

Prominent media professionals like-Editor of the The Hindu N. Ravi, Magsaysay Awardee P. Sainath, The Indian Express Editor in Chief Shekhar Gupta, M.K. Razdan of the Press Trust of India, Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN, Barkha Dutt of NDTV, Dileep Padgaonkar of Times of India and others.

Representatives of the industry includes-Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Vikram Kirloskar, Jamshyd N. Godrej,Nandan Nilekani and others.

Eminent Public Figures like former Prime Ministers H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, academician Karan Singh, scientist M.S. Swaminathan, Lyricist Gulzar, senior advocate Fali S Nariman, former Railway Minster C K Jafar Sharief, Amar Singh were also made members of the council.

Ela R. Bhatt, of SEWA, former National Women Commission chairperson V. Mohini Giri and Neerja Chowdhary, president, Indian Women Press Corps are among the women's representatives of the council. (ANI)